Senate of the Roman Empire

Under Augustus' reforms, a senator had to be a citizen of free birth, have not been convicted of any crimes under lex Julia de vi private, and have property worth at least 1,000,000 sesterces.

[3] Beginning in 9 BC, with the passage of Augustus' lex Julia de senatu habendo,[2] an official list of Senators (the album senatorium) was maintained and revised each year.

In the early Principate, Augustus and Tiberius made conscious efforts to hide their influence on the body, lobbying in private instead of directly proposing legislation.

According to the same work, Elagabalus also established a women's senate called the senaculum, which enacted rules to be applied to matrons, regarding clothing, chariot riding, the wearing of jewelry, etc.

Before this, Agrippina the Younger, mother of Nero, had been listening to Senate proceedings, concealed behind a curtain, according to Tacitus (Annales, 13.5).

While the Roman assemblies continued to meet after the founding of the Empire, their powers were all transferred to the Senate, and so senatorial decrees (senatus consulta) acquired the full force of law.

[7] Under Vespasian (69-79 AD) senators were accorded an increased role as senior officials of the Imperial household in Rome or as provincial rulers directly representing the emperor.

In the final years of the Empire, the Senate would sometimes try to appoint their own emperor, such as in the case of Eugenius who was later defeated by forces loyal to Theodosius I.

The Senate remained the last stronghold of the traditional Roman religion in the face of the spreading Christianity, and several times attempted to facilitate the return of the Altar of Victory, first removed by Constantius II, to the senatorial curia.

It is known that the Senate installed Laurentius as antipope in 498 despite the fact that both King Theoderic the Great and Emperor Anastasius I Dicorus supported Pope Symmachus.

The peaceful co-existence of senatorial and barbarian rule continued until the Ostrogothic leader Theodahad began an uprising against Emperor Justinian I and took the senators as hostages.

Many senators had been killed and many of those who had fled to the East chose to remain there thanks to favorable legislation passed by emperor Justinian, who however abolished virtually all senatorial offices in Italy.

In 578 and again in 580, the Senate sent envoys to Constantinople who delivered 3000 pounds of gold as a gift to the new emperor Tiberius II Constantinus along with a plea for help against the Lombards who had invaded Italy ten years earlier.

Pope Gregory I, in a sermon from 593 (Senatus deest, or.18), lamented the almost complete disappearance of the senatorial order and the decline of the prestigious institution.

The Byzantine Senate did continue to exist in the Eastern Roman Empire's capital Constantinople, however, having been instituted there during the reign of Constantine I, where it survived until at least the mid-14th century.